Guest view: Living in right field before Dow Diamond — installment No. 50

Ronald SearsFor the Daily News

Published
2:11 pm EST, Wednesday, February 20, 2019

After transferring to the Dow Plant in Plaquemine, Louisiana, I attended my first crawfish boil with my wife and daughter. It was held on the grounds of the nearby Dow Plantation. It was a real eye opener.

Rows of tables were set up on saw horses and covered with butcher wrap. Wheel barrows were used to transport the highly spiced boiled crawfish (better known as bass bait in the north) along with whole onions, corn on the cob and unpeeled whole potatoes to the tables where the contents were scooped onto the tables with shovels. Did I mention spices? Wow, and how!

The locals were a big help. They readily volunteered to show us how to peel crawfish and the two ways to eat them. All while standing at the makeshift tables with fiber packs at the ready for disposals.

After eating a few crawfish, I looked for a cold drink to put out the fire in my mouth. At the nearest drink station I saw my wife and daughter, each with a pint container of beer against their mouths. Since neither of them cares for beer, that left me wondering, are these the same two girls I came with?

I walked over for a cold drink and asked them what was going on. They removed the cups from their mouths and told me they had each bitten into an ear of corn and were soaking their lips, trying to put out the fire.

The locals thrive on hot spices and we flunked the spice test.

Growing up in an extended family in Midland, in what is now the right field of Dow Diamond, during the 1930s my family raised much of our food at my grandparents' farms. We lived a fairly simple lifestyle and our food would have been considered bland by Cajun standards. However, I discovered we had one spice in common, horseradish.

My parents grew their own horseradish and granted me the "privilege" of helping to harvest, clean, scrape, and grind the horseradish. I could never figure out how they could eat that stuff without burning a hole in their stomachs. Imagine my surprise that horseradish is used as a condiment in Louisiana. It is particularly favored for raw oysters.

Preparing breakfasts for my guest is a tradition I enjoy. Last winter, my niece, Kelly, was visiting from Midland. Every morning she looked forward to having breakfast with me before she and my daughter left for a day of sight-seeing and playing tourist.

One morning she bit into a sausage, went into the kitchen and read the sausage wrapper. After returning to the table, she asked: "Uncle Ron, do they kick everything up a notch down here with spices?" I assured her that they sometimes do, but most of the time, several notches.

Avery Island along the Gulf Coast is committed to making hot and super hot spices. And, this area of Louisiana is doing its best to help keep the island afloat.

Ronald Sears is a former Midland resident now residing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.